Martin Luther King Day. A holiday. It is snowing, such a blessing, even if fleeting, this warm and dry winter! My dance with my Left Arm and Shoulder continues. How many weeks has it been going on? Description: at certain angles and certain suddennesses of movement, particular muscles in my upper left arm experience a sharp, tearing pain. It is in surface muscles of the triceps (I believe.) The pain trigger point refers to my Ancient Injury in the left shoulder blade. If I’ve slept wrong on my left side, there is also tightness of an extreme type in the neck muscles.
All of this pain is long familiar, only now it is greatly amplified. When I experience it, on the emotional level it strongly connects into old patterns of constriction. It is quite clear to me that the solution to this physical pain is cultivating deep and broad patterns of RELAXATION. The physical symptoms are somatic manifestations of my debilitating emotional patterns of clinging, of holding on, of not letting go. The pattern is of hunkering down, shouldering burdens, bracing for a blow. Ancient patterns of Fear.
Also, I see more clearly an underlying pattern of anger and meanness toward my body, toward myself. Particularly toward my Sinister side. When the muscles catch, my first reaction is Anger. I get pissed at the muscles for thwarting me. I want to push them to do what I want. I am so totally Zaiga toward myself!
I am learning that the only way the pain eases up (and it does, quite quickly) is if I Relax. Relax physically and emotionally. It is clear to me that my Big Learning with this is that, no matter what the situation, no matter what the circumstance, the answer is ALWAYS – Relax. Always, Vienmēr. Siempre.
To practice gentleness and compassion for my Leftwardness, for my physicalness, for my Kyd.
These are issues I’ve become truly aware of at the Piano. It’s like I need the unflagging reality of physical pain to really practice this sort of Compassion. Otherwise I just pay it lip service, but don’t change behaviors.
Control. Issues of Control. Trying to control the outside, control others. This is a huge part of what goes on all over the place with the HOA. Here, too, of course, I try to shoulder too much, bear too much.